William Mcneill Historiography Research

William Hardy McNeill is a distinguished American world historian. He advocates a kind of grand and holistic world history and emphasizes contact and interaction between civilizations, thus ushering in a new era of world history writing. Chinese scholars have introduced some major works of McNeill, but so far there is little comprehensive research done on his historical thought. The present dissertation attempts to examine McNeill’s major works in the light of his life experience and the social and historical context of his time, trying to depict the forming and the development of his historical thought. It summarizes the main features of McNeill’s world history writing and comments on his influence.An in-depth chronological study of William McNeill’s historical thought may help us realize the changes in grand world history writing that the West particularly the US has undergone in the past50years or so. It may also help us understand the current debate on grand world history in history profession, enrich theories on grand historiography in China, and promote the development of world history research.The dissertation consists of the following parts:The preface is an overview of the academic achievements of McNeil and the significance of the present study, followed by a literary review of the related research home and abroad as well as the structure of the whole dissertation.Chapter one looks into McNeill’s family and education background. It identifies the following sources of influence in the forming of McNeill’s thought: his parents, the unique atmosphere of the University of Chicago, American anthropologists, Karl Becker, Spengler, Toynbee, Bloch etc. It also examines McNeill’s thesis and dissertation, concluding that McNeill had already displayed the courage to criticize and the spirit of innovation.Chapter two analyzes McNeill’s early works from contemporary history to the history of western civilization. It points out that those works reveal the political tendency and cold war mentality of McNeill. During this period, McNeill had begun to employ culture diffusion theory to explain the development of human society.Chapter three first reviews the development of grand world history writing before The Rise of the West, and the teaching and research of world history in the US, so as to provide an academic and social background for the understanding of McNeill’s thought. It then investigates the intention, assumption, overall structure, periodization, narrative unit, and diffusionism of this book. Furthermore, it discusses the influence and the reception of this book. In the end, it points out that one of the main features of McNeill’s book is its emphasis on science and technology as well as their roles as impetus in human development. This is a world history guided by science.Chapter four focuses on McNeill’s three subsequent works:Plagues and Peoples, The Pursuit of Power, and The Human Web, all of which are regarded by McNeill as the footnotes or supplementary note of The Rise of the West. These works are closely related to the development of other disciplines at that time and are the results of McNeill’s attempts to integrate new knowledge into world history writing. They provide new paradigm for world history writing. At the same time, they show that McNeill was becoming more and more inclined to parallel human society with the biological and the physical world, subjecting human society to the natural laws. His world history is governed by scientific world history view.The conclusion part summarizes changes in McNeill’s world history writings. It points out that the most striking feature of McNeill’s world history is his practice of paralleling human society with natural world and using natural laws to interpret social changes. The uniqueness of his world history construction originates from his scientific world view. When McNeill consciously employed the scientific method of "hypothesis and test" to write and represent his world history, when he turned to the interpretation of natural world offered by science to explain human history, his world history view became a representation of his scientific world view. The dissertation ends with a summary of McNeill’s contribution to and influence towards grand world history writing.